The Canadian Commonwealth eBook

If this was an “Americanizing of Canada,”
it was not a bad thing. Every part of Canada
felt the quickened pulse. Two more transcontinental
railroads had to be built. All-red routes of
round-the-globe steam ships were established; all-red
round-the-world cables were laid. The quickened
pulse was Canada’s passing from hobble-de-hoy
adolescence with a chip on the shoulder and a tremor
in the throat to big strong, silent, self-confident
manhood.

John Bull is a curious and dour foster father in some
of his moods. He never really wakened up to
Canada as a desirable place for his numerous family
to settle till he saw Jonathan’s coat tails going
over the fence of the border—­till somebody
began to howl about “the Americanizing of Canada.”
Then, in the words of the illustrious Governor-General,
“what was good enough for Americans was good
enough” for him. Clifford Sifton’s
agents had been combing the United Kingdom as they
had combed the western states. British immigration
jumped from almost nothing to a total of 687,067 in
ten years—­with accelerating totals every
year since.

If this was “the Americanizing of Canada,”
it was a good thing for the Dominion.

III

There was another feature to the tidal wave of four
hundred thousand immigrants a year. The American
is a born pioneer, a born gambler, a born adventurer.
The Englishman is a steady-going, dogged-as-does-it
plodder. The American will risk two dollars on
the chance of making ten dollars; he often loses the
two dollars, and he often makes the ten dollars; from
his general prosperity, I should say the latter results
oftener than the former; but the American never in
the least minds blazing the trail and stumping his
toe and coming a hard fall. John Bull does.
He takes himself horribly seriously. He will
never risk two dollars to gain ten dollars.
He will not, in fact, spend the two dollars till he
is sure of four per cent. on it. Four per cent.
on two dollars and ten dollars on two dollars do not
belong to the same category of investment. Jonathan
makes the ideal pioneer; John Bull, the ideal permanent
settler who comes in and buys from the pioneer.

If this, too, be “the Americanizing of Canada,”
it has been a good thing for the country.

To be sure, there have been hideous horrible abuses.
The real estate boom reached the proportions of a
fevered madness before it collapsed. Americans
bought r_an_ches for five dollars an acre and resold
them as r_awn_ches for fifty dollars to young Englishmen
who will never make a cent on their investment; chiefly
because fruit trees take from five to ten years to
come to maturity, and because fruit must be near a
market, and because only an expert can succeed at
fruit.